Believe nothing: The hoax of the Shed at Dulwich

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Julia Creet does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The Shed at Dulwich recently reached TripAdvisor’s No. 1 rated spot for restaurants in London before it was revealed to be a hoax. The stunt showed how easily we are fooled, and blurred the increasingly narrow line between fake news and satire.

The most disturbing example is the failed satire of Paul Horner, a Bernie Sanders fan whose satirical fake news was taken at face value and may have helped Donald Trump win the election. He thought even the dumbest readers would see his stories as satire. They didn’t.

Now the president of the United States blatantly lies and the media often reports it. Are we becoming increasingly blasé about the difference between fact and fiction? Are we ready to embrace false reality? We have come to trust satire because it at least reflects the absurdity of our daily world. At the same time, we are finding satire more difficult to discern.

The stunning hoax of The Shed at Dulwich deceived millions and showed how willing we are to consume an appetizing story. Deception used to be the moral dividing line between satire and fake news. If satire dupes its audience, then it misses its target by a mile.

Fake news, on the other hand, is intended to deceive, swapping the high-minded morals of satire for ideological manipulations, lies, propaganda and profit. What happens when deception and satire go hand in hand?

The lesson may be that we should believe in nothing, not even satire.

Trust no one/believe nothing

The Shed at Dulwich was revealed as a hoax by Vice writer Oobah Butler, who punked TripAdvisor and its foodies by creating a fake restaurant in a brilliant display of satire and parody of fakery. But his satire took an uncomfortable turn when it turned out to be a little too real. Butler called it “false reality.”

Butler, who had previously written fake TripAdvisor reviews as a source of income at 10 pounds a pop, had an epiphany about the vulnerability of the site and users’ trust. In a “climate of misinformation,” and counting on “society’s willingness to believe absolute bullshit,” Butler set himself a challenge: To turn a non-existent restaurant into the No. 1-rated dining establishment in London by having his friends and family write fake reviews.

This wasn’t Butler’s first public mischief. He’s a longtime prankster who can fool anyone and isn’t afraid to make a fool of himself. Having taught satire for 20 years, I know that most satirists are both sadists and masochists at heart, with a strong streak of nihilism.

A buzz began and The Shed’s ratings climbed. The phone began to ring and Butler refused all comers, claiming capacity. Over the coming months, The Shed’s phone rang incessantly.

“I realise what it is,” he later wrote. “The appointments, lack of address and general exclusivity of this place is so alluring that people can’t see sense. They’re looking at photos of the sole of my foot, drooling.”

The cropped heel of his foot masquerades as a ham hock.(Chris Bethell/Vice)

After beginning at No. 18,149 in the TripAdvisor rankings of London restaurants, The Shed had reached the top spot within seven months based on nothing but fake reviews, a website and a refusal to admit anyone. Butler, recording himself in his ratty shed, was near-hysterical with glee and disbelief when he saw the rating.

TripAdvisor has its own deception detection algorithms that evaluate the truthfulness of reviews, which, apparently, work no better nor worse than human discretion.

Butler opens the Shed for one night.(Courtesy VICE /Theo McInnes)

Butler decided to open The Shed for one night, serving instant soup and frozen dinners to a few unwitting guests (without charging them). It’s hard not to cringe watching the scene unfold. Even then, guests said they would come back.

Butler had proven his point: We live in a climate of misinformation and people are suckers.

Asked about about the implications for our trust, Butler laughed and said that he thought truth online was “overrated.” If the ruse has a higher purpose, it show us our gullibility through one of the most bland online forms of collective trust —customer reviews.

Some satirists would dispute Butler’s cavalier attitude towards deception, insisting that satire has to be transparent.

Butler is cynical and optimistic at the same time. His own analysis of his stunningly successful fraud ends with a cheerful conclusion: "You could look at this cynically – argue that the odor of the internet is so strong nowadays that people can no longer use their senses properly. But I like to be positive. If I can transform my garden into London’s best restaurant, literally anything is possible.”

There is no truth to the internet

The story might have ended there, but on Jan. 22, 2018 Butler posted a video documenting The Shed at Dulwich hoax on Facebook, racking up 33 million views. I’m not sure if we can fact-check that number. Does it matter? The comments are deeply appreciative, at many levels. Lots of readers like the business model, and people love the joke. Nobody really talks about the discomfort of seeing themselves as targets.

So are we to thank Butler? Are we less prone to deception having been deceived? Maybe not — deception detection researchers are hard at work creating truth algorithms to fight deception algorithms, leaving humans out of it altogether.

Howard W. Campbell, Kurt Vonnegut’s fake Nazi propagandist in his 1961 novel, Mother Night offers this assessment of trust: “Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider the capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.”

Rohingya Muslim women who fled Myanmar for Bangladesh stretch their arms out to collect aid distributed by relief agencies in this September 2017 photo. A campaign of killings, rape and arson attacks by security forces and Buddhist-aligned mobs have sent more than 850,000 of the country’s 1.3 million Rohingya fleeing.
(AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)